Sorry for not checking in sooner. I’m actually back in Orlando at the moment. It’s funny how all of the conferences seem to take place in Orlando, maybe it’s because the weather every else is awful this time of year. Anyways, it’s a nice escape from the snow and I’m even more excited about this trip because I convinced my sister to bring her family down for spring break. She has two kids and neither of them have been to the Disney World before. How sad is that?

I’ve been here all week and they arrived Wednesday. We visited the parks wednesday night and they been going everyday since. Unfortunately I have to meet up with them after the days festivities are over, but the convention center isn’t far from Disney so it isn’t a big deal.

It’s might be weird to admit, but I’ve actually missed the theme parks and I was just here a few months ago. There is something about walking through the gates of the Magic Kingdom that make you feel like a kid again, and it’s even better experiencing that magic with young kids. Seeing my nephews light up at the sight of their favorite character or actually believe that they on a jungle safari makes this trip so much better.

Me getting a little Goofy in front of the Epcot ball.

This time around we’ve taken advantage of the new Fastpass+ system, which is awesome, because you make a reservation time for rides via Disney’s smartphone app. I actually got to talking to a random cast member (that’s what they call their employees) about the fastpass system and they told me they are currently hiring lots of IT people to work on it behind the scenes. I have to say working at Disney and escaping the cold is rather enticing.

I should probably throw in that my sister is the pinterest queen and her many hours of repinning crafts and random coupons paid off. We always make fun of her, because she wastes so much time on the site, but she ended up figuring out how to save us a ton of money on tickets to the parks and her hotel room. She found a Disney trip planning blog that walked you through how to bypass Disney and buy tickets online. The savings was actually quite large and made the trip actually possible for my sister and her family since their on a tight budget. Looks like pinterest is actually good for something.

We head out Sunday and then it’s off to Seattle for me. I’m going to be teaching one of our new corporate clients how to use the software and help implement it into their Seattle office.

First off, it’s good to be back home. I’ve always been a bit of a homebody so leaving for even a week is a little too long for me. Now that I’m back it’s back to work on a few of my goals for the year. My biggest goal for the was to teach myself iOS development and so far that’s coming along fairly well. It hasn’t been the easiest, but if I find myself stuck in the rut, I turn to Reddit’s computer science boards and find the answer. It’s amazing how quick people will get back to you and how much detail they’ll put in to make sure you’re understanding them. I’ve also thought about enrolling in a non-credit class at the local community college, but I’m not sure that I’ll get out of it what I really want. All the classes sound good in theory, but when I look up the professors on Rate My Professor none of them have good feedback.

I think I mention briefly in a previous post that I recently purchased a digital keyboard. My other goal for this year is to regain my abilities on the piano. I took piano lessons for a number of years as a kid, but I hated them then. Now as an adult I find myself regretting that I didn’t practice more and take full advantage of the opportunity to really play. I initially wanted to get an old antique upright piano for my apartment, but the prices were a little too steep for my budget and any that I did find for cheap had broken keys or something else wrong with it. I ended up getting a really nice digital Yahama and the sound on the thing is awesome! I was really surprised when I heard it live for the first time. Most keyboards have a very obvious digital sound but this thing rocks some amazing samples that sound very much like the real thing. I put in a lot of research to figure out what piano I wanted, but luckily I found a few good resources online like this site that reviews most of the major digital pianos available. So far I’ve been chugging along pretty good with the piano. I skyped with my folks the other night and broke out a mean rendition of “Ode to Joy” which happens to be one of only three songs I can play at the moment. My mom was really happy to see that I’ve come back around to the piano, but she had to throw in one of those “I told you so” moments and wanted me to admit that she had the right idea forcing me into piano lessons.

I have to admit I originally wanted to keep this blog strictly tech based, but I’m starting to like the idea of pouring my random thoughts out onto a page. I haven’t freely typed my thoughts out in awhile and I’ve been a bit surprised at how fast these posts just poor out. I even find myself looking forward to getting a few minutes to unwind and update this thing.

P.S. incase you’ve never heard “Ode to Joy” here is what it is supposed to sound like on piano. Add a few random pauses and an occasional wrong key and you’ve got a pretty dead-on picture of my rendition.

Just checking in again. I’m currently headed back from Florida where I went to a convention for work. I honestly don’t see the value in companies paying for these events. Maybe it is just a tax write-off? I’m not sure, but I don’t see the value in sending hundreds of employees on an all expenses paid “team building trip”. Overall it wasn’t horrible though. What is weird with my job is that we all work from home so we don’t communicate face to face very often. I guess this might be why Cisco feels the need to send us places so we can actually interact in real life. Orlando is an interesting city. It obviously caters to tourism and you see it everywhere you turn. I picked up a copy of the local paper while I was there and instead of seeing the typical political section front and center like here in DC, everything was tourism related. It was interesting to see how the cities reflects its biggest industry in the press and made for some good reading material during my downtime. The Florida must be pretty appreciative of the tourism industry because they have no state income tax because of it. Must be nice, Florida. I’ll think of you as I sign over the hefty check this year!

While I did have to take part in some conferences they mainly wanted us to bond and get to know one another a little better. Our main bonding activity was going to the amusement parks. I haven’t been to Disney World since I was a kid so this was honestly a really nice throwback to my childhood. It’s funny how so many memories come back to you as you’re walking down main street. I guess that is what keeps people coming back year after year. The rides weren’t as cool as I remembered them, but those memories are what make it special, even if I was experiencing the parks with a bunch of random co-workers. I’d like to return to Orlando sometime soon with my family for a real vacation. I forgot how fun being a big-kid can be.

Last year Calvin Harris, one of the biggest DJ’s in electronic music made a reported $46 million. He was one of the top earnings acts in the entire music industry, but he doesn’t sing live, he simply stands behind a DJ booth and presses play. This has really got me thinking about how far music has come and how technology is enabling so many average people to become overnight successes. Look at the success of software like FL Studio. The program is a very easy to use step sequencer that allows you to create songs without doing anything besides a few clicks of a mouse. Successful acts like Basshunter rely on the software to craft their hits.

The music industry has been undergoing some major changes to adapt to all of these new bedroom superstars. Massive recording studios have been shutting down left and right, because the software used in those professional studios is now available for a couple hundred dollars and can be used at home. For about $1,000 someone can have a top-notch bedroom setup that will rival the sound quality of the million dollar recording studios. That’s pretty crazy when you think about it.

The technology has even made its way into instruments as well. I was recently in the market for an entry level piano and was cruising the pages of craigslist hoping to find a good deal on a used upright. Instead I found myself looking at digital pianos that cost half the price of a used upright, yet sound just as good as a massive grand piano. It seems as though the idea of getting what you paid for depends if technology is behind it. What I’m trying to say is that items like a grand piano which easily costs $20,000+ are cannibalized by their electronic counterpart. Where does this market cannibalization cycle end?

Earlier today it was announced that Nike will be revealing new power-lacing sneakers in 2015. This is huge news to me, as I am a huge Back to the Future fan. I’m a little disappointed that everyone and their brother isn’t flying around on a hoverboard, but I won’t be picky. So far very little is known is about the sneakers, but I’m hoping we’ll see a relaunch of the Nike Mags that were worn in the film. A couple years ago Nike auctioned off a select few pairs of Mags and donated the profits to Michael J Fox’s charity. I was bound and determined to get a pair then, but unfortunately they all sold for thousands of dollars, and I couldn’t stomach paying that much for a pair of shoes. Only time will tell as to what Nike is planning to unveil next year, but I think it would be a little odd to release self-lacing sneakers exactly the same year that the Back to the Future movie is set in and not release them as Mags.

This is probably my favorite technology that is gaining a lot of traction at the moment. Google is probably one of the coolest tech companies out there right now and I love their can do attitude. I hear they’re working on an elevator to space. I’m not quite sure how that’d work, but I love that they are willing to take the risk and invest money behind the idea. Anyhoo, the latest project is the self-driving car. For the past couple of years they have been testing the technology out an it actually works really well. The car drives 100% by itself, but the driver can take over if they’d like.

Imagine this being rolled into RVs. You could literally travel across the country, while sitting back and watching tv. Obviously we’re a long way away from that, but if you’ve been in market for a car lately you’d notice that many vehicles already have some sort of driving assistance. For example some vehicle can park themselves, while others will take over if a driver starts to swerve off the road. How cool is that? As of right now there isn’t an exact timeline as to when the google self-driving car will be available to the public, but I’d bet it’s coming in the near future.

As technology advances more and more attention is being turned towards life-extension. National Geographic recently published a magazine cover with a picture of a baby stating this child will live to be 120 years old. Other research reports state that the life expectancy of a child born in the year 2000 will be 100 years old. These are some crazy claims, but could they be real. Think about how far technology has come in the past few decades. Now imagine where we’ll be in the next couple of decades and the idea of rapidly extending life doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

Scientists have been testing various methods of life extension with lab rats and other small mammals and their results have so far been very promising. The other idea circulating around the singularity movement has been the idea of actually uploading our brains into a computer. I think that at this point life-extension isn’t the most relevant word and that immortality would most likely be the better fit. Think about ceasing to exsist in the physical form that you and I know know ourselves as today, and instead being a computer hard-drive. Crazy isn’t it? Will we simply exist inside boxes or will there be life-like robots that mirror of real self or maybe we can customize the bots to appear more like our ideal-self. Hate the extra weight you carried in your physical form? Forget about it, the new robot version of your self has six-pack abs. I think it’s easy to dismiss a lot of these theories as outrageous, but some of the greatest minds in science including Stephen Hawking, are big believers in the ability to upload our minds.

I’ve been passionate about tech for a very long time, and I’ve been working in web development for several years. My goal for this year is to expand my knowledge base beyond web development and learn more about programming and computer science. I see all these apps in the app store and feel the itch to venture into that world as well. My problem is that I don’t know objective-c, so as of right now I cannot make the leap to iOS development.

I’ve found some free resources online and I’m hoping to utilize those this year to help make the transition. I’m currently signed up for Team Treehouse, which has been going great so far. I’m also looking into other resources like Khan, and even Hack Schools. For those unfamiliar with Hack Schools they basically teach you how to program in a very intense 9 week session. You can expect to be coding around 12 hours a day 6 days per week. Sounds nuts doesn’t it? I actually like the idea of cramming it all in though.

Looking back on my bachelors degree I feel like a lot of those classes were full of busy work and a waste of time. I feel like hack school would just teach me the real stuff that I want to know about programming and then I can move forward with developing mobile apps. If anyone has any experience with learning to iOS development online or has been to one of the hack schools, please reach out. I’d love to hear about your experiences.